


The Game

by Primal_Nexus



Series: 'Twas Lunchies in the Replimat [1]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Angst, Elim Garak is raggedy, Julian Bashir and Elim Garak's Book Club, M/M, POV Elim Garak, Pining Elim Garak, Pre-Episode: s02e22 The Wire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:28:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27456475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Primal_Nexus/pseuds/Primal_Nexus
Summary: Garak steeps himself in fantasy as a challenge to remain alert during a lunchtime literary debate with Julian Bashir.
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Series: 'Twas Lunchies in the Replimat [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019175
Comments: 29
Kudos: 84





	The Game

This activity couldn’t be called a diversion, for its intended purpose was quite the opposite. Few things dulled the senses and reflexes as did the sheer boredom of exile, and few things became more tempting than flights of fanciful distraction. Rather than resist outright the deceptive allure of pleasant fabrications, Garak sought to turn this temptation to his own uses: Remaining alert of his surroundings became his chief goal even as he indulged himself.

Lunch with the Doctor was a thrill, a compelling danger, a minefield into which Garak had drifted on more than one occasion a little too casually. Focusing too much on the finer points of their literary debates could make the sounds of the busy Replimat fade. There had even been one occasion when Garak had suddenly realized that he didn’t know the species or affiliation of the three people seated at the table behind him.

Unacceptable. Oh, appalling.

To counter the risk, he of course had to raise the stakes, make it a real challenge for himself, unsaddle the hound. And so the lunches had become a private game in which Bashir was more playing piece than participant.

The young Doctor was making a salient point, a defensive castling, against a rather searing bad faith compliment Garak had served up for the apathy and distance shown by the character Mersault, the protagonist of _The Stranger_ , a mid-20th century Terran novel that he and the Doctor had read (Garak, quickly, voraciously, in little more than an hour, and then again, the morning before their scheduled lunch; but it seemed to Garak that the young Doctor couldn’t possibly have spared the time for even that in a busy past week of crises—somehow, the man evidenced near-perfect recall throughout their conversation, a delightful curiosity… Perhaps it was a favored text?). And there was a reason for uncomplicated cynicism on Garak’s part, the resistance to the more nuanced negotiation Bashir seemed to be pushing for, because Garak got to see that _lovely_ pique. The Doctor’s astonishing arrogance mixed with that peculiar self-consciousness that could only be informed by youth and inexperience made for an intoxicating potion indeed.

Garak purposely slid another lurid layer over his relish of Bashir’s indignation, re-contextualizing the fullness of the moist, pink pout; the furrow between his refined, furry brow ridges; the agitated flush that rushed to the surface of the Doctor’s steeply sloped cheeks, evidencing the heat of his vivid mammalian blood. How might all these cues manifest in reaction to physical rather than verbal stimulation? (There were two Klingons, middle-aged, already slightly drunk, reeking and grousing together at the table behind Garak; so, it was not the most challenging immediate environment of which to remain aware). 

The Doctor took another hasty bite of his meal, barely maintaining the minimal decorum of chewing and swallowing before rushing to clarify the point he had just been making. Garak clicked many muscles into the configuration of a placid, patient smile and imagined how those greedy human incisors might feel nipping his kinat’hU with such speed and appetite. How might he coax that indignation along in a debate between their bodies? Even in the imagining of it he was cautious, of course, so as not to fluster the excitable young man. Ah, but a decent fluster was a delight to behold as well, so why not leave room in his fantasy for that too?

“I find it _so_ interesting,” Bashir was gesturing handsomely if a bit dopily with a fork, “because of course _I_ have to be detached at some level to perform surgical procedures and various analyses, but I can’t _imagine_ the utility of that detachment leading me to believe, much less _take comfort in_ , the apparent meaninglessness of life.” He shook his head wonderingly, that fabulous little I-know-better glint to his eyes and quirk to his mouth as he went on: “Mersault is stubborn! Maintaining his detachment is more important to him than even his own life, but of course he’s not in control of himself at all or else he wouldn’t have killed. He cares _so_ much about not caring. It’s almost a farce.”

“Perhaps he merely accepts his own defect and understands that the state’s culling of him is just. If it doesn’t mean anything to him, then perhaps he simply has accepted his own irrelevance in turn.” Surely that would needle.

“ _Gar-ak_.” Ah, bliss insensate, that disgusted little whine of his name, almost a moan, yes, he could certainly re-contextualize _that_ , reform it. (One of the Klingons behind him stood to leave. A human ensign some tables away at a 45 degree angle to the right sent Julian Bashir a furtive look and then swallowed when she found a slow, watchful blink from Garak, shoveling back into her meal suddenly with embarrassed intensity). Of course he would never tell the good Doctor his first name. Of course there would be many things that could never pass between them. Asking himself if he cared was hardly an exercise at all. The implant had been activated for long months, and the despair and loneliness, the torture of useless fantasy, the stark reality of impending death, the everyday bright and cold crush of exile and disgrace: all of it evaporated into a buzz of pleasure when touched upon.

“My dear Doctor, I only mean to say that it’s quite obvious that nothing should matter to this Mersault. He acts without purpose, and so he sees none.”

Bashir leaned an elbow on the table, gracelessly plopping his cheek into his ample palm with an exaggerated albeit amused exasperation.

“Why is it that it gets to me _so_ much more when you _like_ what _I_ like for all the wrong reasons than when you just hate what I love?”

“There truly is no accounting for taste, is there?”

The Doctor’s smile widened even as he scoffed in response, rolling his eyes, pressing his hand even tighter against his jaw as he shook his head. Of course he had to know what an absolute delight he was, a passing spark of joy, however meaningless, in the diminishing arc of Garak’s sad, pointless life. The pain of it, the pleasure, was exquisite. He imagined the form Bashir’s retrospective pity on him might take, which infuriated Garak, ratcheted up the pain, the implant making him feverish with thrilling chemical exuberance. He could scream at the hollow misery of it, he could bloom right here in the Replimat, he could turn in his chair and choke that remaining Klingon to unconsciousness, he could throw his dulled cutting utensil with enough accuracy and force to fly through the eyeball of that young ensign over there and fatally deep into her brain, he could just laugh and laugh, he could lay everything out to Bashir, he could end the meal politely and return to the work in his shop, just continue the routine of his sham… none of the possibilities laid out before him mattered a shred. He could die tomorrow. He would certainly die soon. And? And? _And?_

“Are you quite all right?”

_Damn_. He had lost again. Bashir’s eyes searched his own with unsettling precision, almost seeming to scan and store data.

“I’m afraid I’ve just recalled that an important commission is due rather earlier than previously thought.” Before he moved to stand, Garak mustered a gracious tilt of the head and a smile of genuine gratitude. What else was there for it but these lunches? “I’ll send something Cardassian along for next week, yes?”

“Uh, sure. Thanks for…” And there was another famous Julian Bashir grin, the not-quite-assured-confidence, the self-deprecating amusement that made him impossibly _more_ fetching. “I like our lunches.” 

Garak had stood and nearly taken a quick but smooth leave of the table, but he turned back at that blurted statement.

“I’m so very glad that you do. Good afternoon, Doctor.”

Sometime in the midst of that short exchange, the remaining Klingon behind Garak had left the Replimat, cementing the scope of his loss. Garak retreated to his shop, his eyes bulging with panic and anger as the wave of simultaneous pleasure hit him.

**Author's Note:**

> ... I, uh...
> 
> I don't know why I'm like this! :)


End file.
